The Waking Hours
by ArentYouSophiaLoren-8887
Summary: The day after Adam's funeral, Bianca has a decision to make - to leave and go back to her new life, or stay with the ones who helped make it. And with Drew unreachable and Audra lost in her own grief, there really doesn't seem to be any other choice.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: This story will probably be four or five chapters. I would say that I hope you enjoy it, but, uh…well, you get what I mean. **

**Twitter: AlbatrossTam14 (protected tweets)**

**Tumblr: welldeservedobscurity**

**I.**

She's been up since before the sun rose, but can't seem to feel tired. Her fingers twitch and fumble with the clasp on her necklace, but they feel fat, uncoordinated. She mutters a curse under her breath and tugs half-heartedly on the chain, hard enough to dig into her sweaty skin but not hard enough to break it.

The sound of footsteps behind her, then a cool, calloused hand on the back of her neck. Brushing her hair away, the fingers carefully take hold of the slim gold chain, and after a second manage to work the clasp open and slip it off her neck.

She turns around, and Drew slowly drops the necklace into her palm.

"Thanks," she says.

He doesn't say anything, just stares at the star-shaped charm fastened on the end. He gave it to her for graduation. She remembers this, and her throat clamps shut. She wishes she'd worn something –anything – else.

He watches it catch the bare lamplight, glimmering softly. Stares at it, like he's mesmerized.

She takes her palm, lays it on his cheek. His eyes meet hers, and he leans into the touch of her hand.

She reaches up and gives him a kiss.

"You should lay down," she murmurs.

He doesn't respond, just closes his eyes. He's exhausted, and she wonders how he could still be standing, given that he hasn't slept in two days. Neither has she, but then again, she hasn't been waking up from nightmares of the school van hitting that tree, sobbing and thrashing, gasping for breath that won't come, Adam's name on the tip of his tongue but unable to force it out.

He looks at her, eyes rimmed with black bags, and sighs like everything in him aches.

"People liked the bonfire," he says, his voice rusty.

She nods. "They did. Everyone got to say goodbye."

When he winces visibly, shutting his eyes while his face contorts, she bites her lip and strokes his cheek, still damp.

"Everyone loved him," she murmurs. "They all got to show it. It was pretty amazing."

He nods slowly, then sits – more like sinks – down on the bed, laying on the unmade covers. He's still dressed in the clothes he wore to the funeral, the ones that smell like smoke and wilting flowers. She tries not to shudder at the scent when she lies down with him, their hands intertwining over his heart.

She wonders if he ought to get up, change out of the suit, put on something more comfortable. Or at least, something they didn't bury his brother in. But Drew doesn't move, barely breathes beside her, and she doesn't push. Suits can be dry-cleaned, wrinkles ironed.

"You should eat something," is all she can manage, because it doesn't hurt to say it and it's still true.

He shakes his head.

"If I eat," Drew says, "I'll throw up."

That ends that. She rests her palm on his jaw, and he sighs into her touch.

"Did you see Dallas?" he asks, after a moment.

"No. I think he got a ride with Dave. I don't know where they went." She looks up at him. "Want me to text him?"

"No." Drew stretches out, pulling an arm around her. His fingers slowly stroke her forearm. "I just wanted to know."

Bianca kicks her socks off with the tips of her toes. She twines her leg with his, and puts her head on his shoulder.

"Did he cry?" he asks.

She blinks. "What?"

"Dallas. At the – " Drew takes a breath. "The church. Did he cry?"

Bianca tries to remember. It was only a few hours ago, but the whole funeral feels like a blur. Audra crying beside her, Omar holding his wife with vacant eyes, Drew silent and grey-faced, his hand limp in her own. They'd been in the front row, and she'd been so focused on not puking or sobbing or standing up and screaming at the priest that she hadn't been able to notice anything else.

"He cried when that other kid died," Drew says. "I saw him. He was – he was so messed up." He sighs. "I just wanted to know."

There's a tug in the pit of her stomach. She forgot all about that poor kid on the hockey team. His face is clear in her memory, teary-eyed and shaking, and it makes her gut twist. She buries her face in Drew's shoulder, trying to put Campbell Saunders out of her mind.

"I don't know," she says quietly. "I couldn't see him."

When Drew doesn't reply, she squeezes his hand.

"He loved Adam," she says. Her voice is low, every word scratching her throat. "Everyone there did. A lot of people cried. They're all sad, Drew."

"I know," he says. "I just…I was wondering."

He shifts away from her, turning to the wall. She watches him curl into himself, then lays down on her own pillow while she stares at the ceiling. The tiredness finally starts to seep in, and she lets her eyes drift shut, pushing damp ringlets off her forehead streaked with sweat. The air in the room feels suffocating; the windows are sealed tight, like they're entombed here.

Bianca stares at the moon. Full and fat, on a clear, starless night. It fills the glass, butting up against the frame like it's trying to spill through.

"What can I do?" she asks to his backside.

He doesn't answer, just sighs. The bed seems to sink under his weight.

Bianca sits up, reaches one hand over. Touches his shoulder, and it's like touching a live wire, humming under her hand. The coiled tension radiates all the way through her.

"Drew," she says softly.

He doesn't move, doesn't answer.

Bianca lies back down, trying to take a breath. When one doesn't come without a struggle, she turns on her side, spooning up against Drew, and wraps her arms around him. She sighs and closes her eyes, hoping for sleep to come.

It doesn't.

**II.**

She awakes with a start, bolting straight up in bed and wondering, for half a second, where she is. It's a moment before she blinks against the light of the bedside lamp and remembers herself, still in her bonfire clothes and her arm slightly numb from sleep.

Drew is tossing and turning beside her, tangled in his suit jacket and lost to some silent dreamworld. She tries to shake his shoulder, but he doesn't seem to notice, even when she shakes him as hard as she can.

"Drew," she says. Her voice feels like it echoes through the room. "Hey. Wake up."

He's lying, thrashing, dripping sweat and his mouth open in some wide, silent horror, forming an O that can't force the words out –

So it just comes as one long, loud scream.

It's the most awful noise she's ever heard, and it doesn't sound human. She can't move, and for one crazy second she wonders where the noise is coming from.

"Drew." She almost stutters, barely holds it back. She's shivering all over, and her teeth won't stop chattering. She slams her jaws together, refusing to allow the sound, and pushes her body against his. Every inch of him radiates heat and terror, and he tries to shrink into himself, letting out another strangled cry when he realizes he has nowhere to go.

"Drew," she repeats – or at least, thinks she does. His name doesn't sound like his name, like anything familiar, once it leaves her lips. She isn't even sure it leaves her mouth, and he certainly doesn't seem aware of it, or aware she's here at all. Even though they're forehead to forehead, their arms tangled together and his pulse is racing furiously under her fingers. His button-down is absolutely _drenched_, and his suit jacket locks his arms against his side as he fights the straightjacket grip.

"Drew!" The sound escapes, traitorous, laced with panic. She hates herself for it. But she's terrified, and it feels like a block of ice in the gut.

Bianca bites her lip, so hard she's surprised she doesn't taste hot blood on the tip of her tongue. _Get your shit together, DeSousa._

She takes his face in her hands, forces his gaze to meet her. Salty tears roll from his eyes through the slats of her fingers, and she strokes the pads under his black-bagged eyes with her thumbs. He whimpers at the touch, but stops making that horrible sound, and the thrashing dials down the longer he stays in her hands.

"Drew," she says, and this time, it's devoid of tone. Bianca repeats it again, and again, and then keeps saying it, until it loses the sound of his name and becomes a senseless tune, an eerie lullaby punctured by the ragged edge of Drew's gasps for air, his wracking sobs.

She doesn't realize she's holding her breath until the burn licks her chest, and she lets it out slowly, feeling dizzy. She tries to listen over the sound of his tears, but doesn't think she hears footsteps from the second story. Looks like Audra and Omar slept through it all, miraculously. Maybe the Herculean effort of getting through today did them _some_ good. And she doesn't hear Dallas from the guest room down the hall, either.

Of course, the other side of the wall – Adam's room – is silent.

"Baby," she says. Her voice still that low, windy hum. "Baby, look at me."

She won't let herself blink; barely lets herself breathe. She feels like she's floating, strangely out-of-body, but ignores it and just focuses on keeping herself as still as possible.

"Come here. Look at me, okay? Shhh. Look at me, baby."

His head is still in her hands, fat tears slipping between her fingers. She presses their faces together, noses bumping, the contours matching and meeting like they always have. Then kisses his forehead, between his eyes, the tip of his nose. Kisses his lips, and wipes the wetness off his cheeks.

"Look," she says, slow and softer than a whisper. "At. Me"

His eyes open. Bianca holds the gaze, won't let herself look away from his wide, white eyes. He shuts them again, ducking his face away from her.

A sound escapes him; the first thing that sounds like it's trying to be a syllable.

"What?" she asks.

He gargles something out; she doesn't know what it means, but he's trying to say _something._

Whatever it is, it's making him frantic. His fingers claw at her collarbone, scratching the skin, and he has her arms in an iron grip. It hurts, but Bianca doesn't try to move.

"Can't," she finally hears him manage.

She's still holding onto him. Carefully, she takes one trembling hand off his face, and smoothes back his sweat-soaked hair.

"What?" she repeats

Drew finally looks at her. His eyes are wild, colorless.

"Can't," he says again.

Her brow furrows. "Can't what?"

Drew shakes his head.

"Y-y-y-ou…" A series of grunts and indistinguishable murmurs, and then he shakes his head again.

"Can't," she hears again. "G-g-o, don't go, don't go, d-d-d-"

He gasps, arching off the mattress as a shudder runs through him, and gags. Nothing comes out, but he keeps heaving, and rolls over to the other side of the bed, coughing and choking over the carpet.

She watches, waits, but there's nothing in his stomach to bring up. When he's done, he turns back to her, wrapping his arms around her back and hugging her so tight that her face cuts into his shoulder.

"Don't go," he says. His voice, for the first time, is clear, and drenched with panic. "Don't go, don't go, you can't go, you can't, you can't leave me, you can't go!"

His chest clenches; she feels it against her own. She's reminded, briefly, of the nightmares that woke them on nights they never talk about – when his warmth was what shielded her from memories of gangs and guns, and when she'd call him back from that afternoon in the blood-soaked snow with a similar tide of whispers. It was one of those things they knew they'd never discuss – like that cold night in April, the alleyway, the slush in the street and the empty sky and the screams no one heard.

But this is different, and she doesn't know how to bring him back from this – the van right before it hit the tree, the horn blasting through the muggy lakeside night, the smell of gasoline and the crunch of broken glass and the tangle of crumpled steel. The taste of iron, when they lowered him in the grave.

"Adam..." The name comes out in a long, tangled wail, like it could go on for hours. Her chest clamps at the word. "You can't go! Don't leave me! Don't go!"

Bianca stays quiet, focuses on stroking his hair. His breathing is slowing down, just a little, but his heart is still drumming against her body.

"Please." His voice rises with every syllable. "Don't leave me. Don't go."

He sniffles into her hair. The loose ends tangle in his fingers.

"Okay," she whispers in his ear.

She anchors herself to the bed, and runs her hands down his back.

"Okay. It's okay." She keeps rubbing his back in slow circles. "It's okay. I'm here."

He's still sobbing, still begging as she continues to croon, and at some point he trips into hysteria and there's nothing she can do to bring him back. She can only lie still and hold on, until he finally winds himself down from exhaustion.

Slowly, very slowly, she feels him drop off into sleep. When he finally feels still and heavy as stone, she lets herself let go.

His grip slides easily away from her. He's pliant under her hands as she brushes his soaking wet hair away from his eyes, kisses his forehead, tucks the bed sheets around him. He doesn't stir.

She sits up against the headboard, tries to catch her breath. It feels like she's been sprinting.

She aches all over, and not just from the fierce weight of his arms hanging onto her. Every part of her just _hurts,_ raw and bone-deep, like the night she got the call from Dallas about what happened.

Bianca doesn't realize she's shaking until she tries to stand, then almost falls flat on her face. She falls against the bedside table instead, almost knocking the lamp over and scraping the skin of her palm against the sharp edge. Cursing to herself, she sits back on the bed and takes a deep breath, her bleeding hand cradled in her lap.

She sits there for a moment in the lamplight, and feels something loosen in her chest. A few droplets from her palm still to the leg of her jeans, like raindrops made of blood.

She finally pushes herself up and hobbles towards the bathroom, where she sits on the edge of the tub and turns the water on as hot as it can get. She hisses through her teeth when the heat stings the cut on her palm. Blood runs to the drain, turning the water near the drain pink and steamy. After a moment, she takes her bottle of body wash, the one Drew keeps in the corner of the shower for when she stays here, and squirts a trail of blue soap into the water.

Her head is throbbing; she can't remember ever being this tired before. Bianca leans against the cool tiles, pressing her forehead to them, bracing herself and letting her body go loose. It feels a little better, and she doesn't feel guilty about letting tears fall in the privacy of this little room, away from anyone's eyes and her own sense of pride. At least it helps the knot in her chest.

She can't leave him; not now. Can't leave any of them. Can't leave, period.

It wouldn't just be the most selfish thing she could do. It would be a slap in the face to everyone she loved.

After everything the Torreses did for her – lawyers, a summer job, the engagement, helping her pay for college, so much more than she could even put on a fucking _list_ – how could she ever have _thought_ to turn around and just go back to school? They were always so strong for her, were there for her when everything was at its worse. Just to up and leave them all like this –

Bianca presses a damp palm to her throbbing forehead. The bubbles fill the tub as the water rises, smelling of berries and tangerines. The roar of the faucet almost drowns out the sound of Drew's agonized sobs, still ringing in her ears. She closes her eyes, and the overwhelming scent of ash and too many floral arrangements fills her nose. It makes her want to gag. Somehow, she holds it in.

When the tub is almost running over, Bianca strips out of her smoke-scented clothes and lowers her body into the steaming water. It makes her wince – definitely too hot – but makes her feel calm almost right away. Pinching her nose with her fingertips, she lets herself sink under the surface, and all the noise whooshes away. Her heartbeat rushes to her ears, and she lets it flood her to the bottoms of her toes, the base of her throat, the entire length of her fingers. Her whole body pulses at once, the world shimmering in silence.

She'd be in _jail_ if it wasn't for them. Dead, even.

She couldn't leave now, even if she wanted to.

And she doesn't.


	2. Chapter 2

**I.**

For the second day in a row, Bianca's up before the sun. She tries to be careful getting out of bed, but Drew is immobile beside her, in the same position he fell asleep. She looks at the clock and realizes that she's been asleep for almost four solid hours – the longest string of sleep she's had since coming back, and the longest Drew's managed to sleep without waking from another nightmare about the van hitting the tree.

She feels him breathe beside her, deep and slow, easy as a normal night. She gives him a kiss on his cheek, dry for the first time in days. He doesn't stir, nor does he move when she slips out of bed, pulling his sweatshirt over her tank top and shorts. She tiptoes out the door, closing it silently behind her, and heads to the patio. It's a warm night – morning, she amends, even if the sun isn't up – and she curls herself into a chair, looking at the inky sky.

When the sun starts peeking out over the horizon and the sky fades from black to navy to a silvery golden haze, she gets up and makes herself a cup of coffee and goes back downstairs to the patio. With a warm cup of coffee and her sweatshirt sleeves rolled up, she watches the red morning come up, and the sun glow behind the city skyline in the distance.

She can't leave him. It settles in her stomach, the reality of it. Not when he's messed up like this. Not when _everything_ is so fucked up.

She remembers, all of a sudden, words from a morning a long time ago – the morning Katie went to rehab. When Bianca told Drew why he couldn't leave her:

Because she was broken. And if Drew left her now, she'd fall off the edge she was barely hanging on to.

She can't exactly _not _live up to her own advice. And if there ever was a time when someone was completely shattered, this is it.

So.

Taking another sip of coffee, she stares at the shimmering horizon, and tries to think of a next step. She doesn't think it's too late to withdraw from fall semester. She hasn't bought books yet. And it may not be too late to get at least a partial refund on tuition; maybe not a total loss.

The dorm refund, on the other hand, probably _is_. She already paid the non-refundable deposit - $100 to live in some shitty dorm that was cold in the winter and hot in the summer – plus the actual room and board fee had been paid months ago. She probably won't get anything back on any of that, and that really sucks – that's over twelve hundred dollars.

It probably also means, she realizes, revoking her scholarships. The grants she'd applied for. All that money she worked for, down the drain.

Bianca stares at the rising sun, and her eyes slide down to her rolled-up sleeves, her bare forearms. The red marks on her arm Drew's grip left there. She runs her finger lightly over it, and it all comes back to her: the panicked cries and his terrified eyes and the way he didn't seem to see her. The way he disappeared from her yesterday, even when he was two feet away and she was looking right at him, trying to pull him back from wherever he was that she couldn't reach. How he begged her to stay, until only his own exhaustion silenced him.

Whatever school issues she'll have aren't what's important right now. Money is – should be – the least of her worries. It's not like she wouldn't fork over every scent she ever made to have Adam back, anyway.

And with that, her new resolve.

Of course this is about more than just money.

This is about Drew, Adam, Audra, Omar…

She stares at the welts on her arms once more, closing her eyes.

And it's all more important than what she wants.

**II.**

She's in her third or fourth cup of coffee when the car pulls up into the driveway, startling her. She sees Dallas climb out, give the driver a wave, and head towards her wearing the same clothes he wore last night.

"Late night?" she asks.

He nods tiredly. "You too?"

She swirls her coffee cup at him.

He grimaces. "Where's Drew?"

"Still asleep." Bianca stares at her now-cold coffee.

"How'd he get through the night?" he asks. His voice is low.

Bianca looks up at him, pulls her mouth to a tight line.

Dallas looks away.

"Yeah," he sighs. "I figured."

They both fall into silence. They've never really known what to say to each other, without Drew and Adam around to provide equal ground, or without the casual backdrop of a Game Night or family dinner. They've never really been alone with each other, she realizes now. At least, not long enough for conversation.

"We didn't see you after the bonfire," she says, after they've been silent for too long.

After a moment's hesitation, he takes the chair across from her.

"Yeah," he says. "Went to my ex's. Saw my kid." He stares at the ground. "Seemed like the thing to do, last night."

Bianca looks into her cup again. She constantly forgets that Dallas has a kid. Wonders if he does, too, at times.

Dallas runs a hand over his head, sighing.

"How was he?" she asks.

He shrugs. "All right. Happy to see me." A small smile plays at the corner of his mouth. "He wanted me to watch _The Smurfs_ with him. So I did." He looks at her and rolls his eyes. "Twice."

Bianca has to grin. "And he didn't want to spend the day with his daddy?"

"Vanessa's parents had church this morning," Dallas says, "so she dropped me off before."

"Not big on the whole kumbaya thing?" she asks.

He shakes his head. "More like I didn't want her parents staring knives at me the whole time."

He looks away a moment, then says, "Plus, I think I had all the church I can take." He sighs. "You know."

She doesn't answer, just tucks her frigid toes underneath her legs in the chair. She can't believe it's Sunday. A part of her feels like it should be next month, year, even; the days have seemed so endless. At the same time, she can't believe it's already been four entire days since Adam died. It seems like it should be perpetually Tuesday; as if the world should just hang suspended where it was that afternoon, frozen in time, and never leave that day.

"So," Dallas says, "what are you doing up so early?"

"Was up all night thinking." She takes another sip of her coffee, even though it's lost its taste. "Couldn't shut my brain off."

"I hear you," he says.

After that, another silence comes between them. Not knowing what else to do, Bianca grazes her fingers over the grimy patio tabletop, leaving spirals in the dust and coming away with dirty fingerprints. Dallas watches her trace the lines on the glass, as if mesmerized.

"I kept thinking how different it was," he says, after a moment.

She looks up at him. "Different from what?"

"Just…" He stares off and focuses on a spot away from her.

"Everything's so different this time," he finally says. "You know, from when…"

She remembers, again. Campbell Saunders.

"Like," Dallas starts, as if this had been on his mind for a long time and he'd just been waiting for someone to let him say it, "I had to fight to even get Cam in the stupid yearbook video. And Audra didn't want the garden reopened, after. Nobody wanted to do anything for him, because it was, I don't know, 'sending a wrong message', or something. I don't even know. And it just…it made me mad. NOBODY wanted to say anything about Cam, or pretend he existed."

Bianca watches him grind his fists into the knees of his pants.

"But he DID still go to Degrassi," he argues. "He deserved _something._"

He looks over at her.

"I'm not mad at everything we did for Adam," he tells her quickly. "He deserved it. And it was what everyone needed. But with Cam…everyone just tried SO hard to forget about it, you know? Like, the entire school felt sad for the day, and then it was like we all had to just shut up about the whole thing and not ever talk about it. Like it was…some big secret."

Dallas shakes his head bitterly. "And I don't want to. I can't, you know? Then it's like, what happened didn't really happen, and it's not important. Like HE wasn't important." He bites his lip, jaw set firmly. "And he'll always be remembered that way – like he was some big mistake everyone needed to forget. Adam will always be remembered for the guy he was, but people don't want to remember Cam for the same thing."

Bianca stares at the dust gathering on her fingers. There's a dull thud in her stomach that's been there ever since Dallas called and told her. She wonders if it will just become a permanent part of her now, like her hair or her fingernails. Always this grating need, this empty pit in her that a single phone call across the highway created.

She wonders how Dallas can bear it, losing two people he cared about so close together. If he feels this hurt as raw and fresh as the first one, if it's just as deep. Or if, after a while, it's all used up. That you can't feel much of it, even if you wanted to, because there's just nothing left _to _feel.

All things considered, she doesn't think it would be the worst thing in the world.

Coffee was a bad idea; she doesn't need a stimulant right now. She pushes it away, and the cold brown liquid sloshes onto the table at the quick motion. Bianca looks away, biting her lip hard. She won't fucking cry in front of Mike Dallas, sitting here in her pajamas with morning breath, barefoot and bedheaded and like she really is as low as she feels.

Dallas watches the coffee spread across the tabletop.

"I always hate the day after funerals," he says. "They're worse than funerals. I don't know why."

Bianca does. Because you're left alone with your thoughts, and no one else to share them with. Everyone else is already moving on, back to their own lives. The funeral was just a temporary break from normalcy for them.

As opposed to the new norm.

"Sucks," is all she can manage.

**III.**

She opens her laptop and finds it completely dead, so she switches it out for Drew's fully-charged one sitting in the corner of his bedroom, and plugs her own into the wall outlet.

Drew is still fast asleep in bed. His breathing is, for the first time in days, calm and steady, his face almost peaceful if it weren't so swollen and red. Bianca looks at the way his arms thrown over his head, almost like he's guarding himself against something in his dreams. She tries not to let it hurt her, or make her want to crawl back in with him. Let herself sink into the sheets that still have the shape of where she'd been; wrap her arms around him and try to match the rhythm of his own chest against hers.

Instead, she pulls the blanket he kicked off back over his sleeping form. Runs a hand over his hair. He doesn't move, even when her fingers linger on his cheek for a moment, grazing the warm skin. She wants to kiss him, but doesn't. Then Bianca tiptoes upstairs, laptop in hand, the door slowly clicking shut behind her.

The den is still filled with all of the flower arrangements from the funeral. The overwhelming scent of lilies makes her over-caffeinated stomach turn. She wants to throw all of them in the dumpsters by the garage door, if only to keep everyone in the house from getting a massive headache. But she just stares determinedly at her feet and clutches the laptop, holding her breath against the smell as she takes the stairs two by two.

The kitchen is deserted, and lazy beams of light are streaming through the blinds on the windows, cutting jaggedly across the hardwood floor. She remembers one of the first times she was ever in this kitchen, right after prom her junior year. After the shooting, the alleyway. Vince. It all seems like an eternity ago. Surrounded by chrome and stainless steel and the smell of lemons, feeling as if the place was sizing her up.

The whole room had felt so hard and unforgiving to her, the morning after that prom. Bianca remembers vividly standing in this kitchen, still in her stained dress, and her stark white, teary-eyed reflection stared back at her in the cold gleam of every appliance. Like they taunted her. As if the entire house was trying to say: _you don't belong here_.

She takes a seat at the kitchen table and fires up the computer. Strange, how barely a year ago this house felt like it was trying to push her away. Now it's the only place she's ever felt completely welcome.

The laptop gives a few clicks and hums, then the screen comes to life. Bianca's hands go over the keyboard, then freeze the moment she sees the background –

A photo from their trip to Vegas.

It was taken the day after the abandoned wedding; their last night at the hotel before flying home. They spent it at one of the hotel's pools, ordering food from the cabana and taking turns down the giant waterslide. There are Fiona and Imogen, with their arms wrapped around each other, sitting in the pool steps. Fiona's hair is piled on top of her head in a wet bun, but Imogen's is loose for once, streaming down her back; Bianca remembers Fiona telling her she looked like a mermaid that way. To the right of them, Drew is kissing her own cheek, and her arms are hanging around his neck. His eyes are closed, and his expression is blissfully happy. Bianca has a smile on her own face as well, but it's more to herself than for whoever is taking the photo (she's forgotten by now…Audra? Some random hotel guest?).

And then there's Adam. It's like a knife so hot it feels freezing cold as it slides through her, registering each detail. Sitting on a deck chair in swim trunks and a red t-shirt, baseball cap half-covering his face. He's got the iPad tucked under his arm; he might have been Skyping Becky while the rest of them were in the water. At this point she can't remember.

She can't remember much about that day, but the happiness in all of their eyes makes her head hurt. She slams the laptop shut, suddenly breathless.

Bianca braces her head in her hands, elbows on the glass tabletop. Makes herself inhale, exhale, remember a pattern. It's a minute or two before that actually happens. In the meantime, she stares out the shuttered kitchen window as the blades of light slide in, and clutches her hands into fists so hard the manicured nails dig into her palm.

God _fucking_ damn it, is it always going to feel this way? There's a sob bricking her throat that she refuses to break, tears she won't shed. If she will, she won't fucking stop. How does _anybody_ live like this?

"Bianca?"

A voice that sounds like it's been scraped with sandpaper makes Bianca open her eyes. Audra is standing in the doorway, still in her robe, hair askew and eyes black-bagged. She blinks a few times in the light of the kitchen.

"What are you doing up?" she asks.

Bianca slips her hands under her thighs. Doesn't need Audra to see them shaking. She swallows past the lump in her throat.

"Couldn't sleep," she says. She doesn't add that it's almost 11 AM.

Audra stares at her for a moment. It's almost like she's not quite sure why Bianca is sitting in her kitchen. Then she blinks, running her fingers through her hair and sighing.

"Did you eat?" she finally says.

Before Bianca can reply, she's going to the coffee maker. She holds up the nearly-empty pot – Bianca meant to make more for the rest of the house, but forgot – and shakes her head at the remaining dregs in the pot.

"Really?" Audra says to Bianca, swirling the little bit left. "What time did you get up?"

Bianca doesn't answer, just gives her a grim smile.

Audra comes over and sits across the table from her. There's still yesterday's mascara clinging to her eyelashes, as well as her eyeshadow and tired smears of tears streaking her cheeks.

"Guess I shouldn't talk," Audra mumbles, though Bianca thinks it's mostly to herself than like she's actually entering a conversation. She runs her fingers through her hair again. "Yesterday I spent fifteen minutes staring at a box of instant oatmeal. One minute I'm trying to make dinner, the next it's almost midnight."

Audra's hands are trembling as they rest on the table. The warmth of her palms leave sweaty blotches on the surface, smearing the glass.

"Are you sure I can't get you something to eat?" she says.

Bianca can't make the words come out. She just sits across the table from Audra, watching the woman's manicured hands shake and smudge the spotless glass surface of the kitchen table where they shared so many dinners together.

Audra's lower lip starts to shake in time with her hands. Her eyes go wide, then blink furiously; she ducks her head to her chest like a small, scolded child, and coughs out a sound that's not quite crying, not quite laughing, not quite screaming.

"There's Eggos," she says, then dissolves into tears.

Bianca gets up and wraps her arms around Audra. She's sniffling herself, but fights it back and takes a breath to make herself swallow them down. Audra leans into her embrace, her face buried in Bianca's shoulder, gripping her shirt tightly.

Bianca's never been good at this type of thing; people never come to her with their tears, and she's not good at saying the things that make people feel better. She's never been good at being anyone's lifeline, any better than she's good at being a friend.

Unlike last night, when Drew was incoherent and didn't even seem to know she was there, Audra hangs onto her and leans into Bianca like she's waiting for something. It's a perverse role-reversal; Audra's always known what to say in every situation to Bianca, because she's always been perfect at running things. Now Bianca just runs a hand down the back of Audra's robe, smoothing her tangled hair, having no idea to say and knowing she's failed horribly at some test she'd spent this entire relationship building up to.

"I can make you some lunch," she says, finally, in the same tone that people would use to say _it's going to be okay. _It's stupid – woefully, painfully, ridiculously stupid, but what's the alternative? Nothing is okay, nothing will be okay, and Bianca doesn't believe in that sort of thing, anyway.

Audra takes a few wet, shaky breaths, then looks up and brushes the tears away.

"No thank you," she says, so polite, and it would be funny, except it's not. Bianca kneels down in front of the chair, and it reminds her of yesterday, begging Drew to talk to her.

"Please, Audra," Bianca says, and she hates that it sounds like _she's_ the one begging for something. This isn't how she envisioned helping the closest thing she's ever had to a mother, the one and only time Audra's ever needed her at all.

Audra shakes her head, and pulls back the rest of her sobs with a loud sigh. She wipes her face dry once more, and her face settles into bits and pieces of her usual resolve.

"There's so much laundry," she says, in a tone that's a shadow of her usual one. "It's been piling for days."

"I can take care of that," Bianca says immediately. Finally, a task she's suited for. "All of it. Leave everything to me; you don't have to do anything. I can do it all, Audra."

The briefest smile tugs at Audra, then she shakes her head.

"No," she says, standing up and stretching out. "I think I need to do this myself."

She rubs her hands over her face, blowing out a breath.

"Trust me," she adds to Bianca. "I got it. After I shower."

"Are you sure?" Bianca says quietly. "You don't have to worry about doing anything; really, it's okay."

"No," Audra tells her. "I think this is something I need to do. Today. And a shower. And eating." She gives a dry, humorless laugh that sounds like someone pouring salt water over a cut. "And figuring out what to do with all those flower arrangements! They're gonna give me a headache."

Bianca watches her shake her head and stare off at something in the living room, her eyes fixing on something invisible. She wishes her arms didn't hang so uselessly at her sides.

"I'll clean the kitchen," Bianca says. Silly, because there is no mess to clean, except for the empty coffee pot and the smudges on the table.

But Audra smiles – humoring her as much as she is grateful for it.

"You don't have to do anything," she says.

Bianca hates the way she knows her mouth must be shaking right now. "I want to," she whispers.

Audra touches her hair, almost hesitantly. Then she kisses the side of Bianca's head, stroking her loose, tangled hair.

Bianca tries to smile. She wraps her arms around Audra and hangs on. Audra's shoulders are shaking under her hands, and she feels smaller somehow; less solid. Like she might fade away if Bianca lets go of her.

"I'm glad you're here," Audra murmurs. "I don't know what we'd do without you."

Bianca closes her eyes, and hangs on tighter.


	3. Chapter 3

**I.**

She feels hungover as she heads back down to Drew's bedroom,, a hand pressed to her forehead. She almost trips on herself as she heads to the basement, and catches herself at the top of the stairs. It's hard to take a breath strong enough to calm her down. There's sweat on the back of her neck, her breath shallow. Her shirt is damp from Audra, her arms shaking from not having to hold onto her anymore, grip her shoulders and wrap her arms around the woman's neck.

She really shouldn't have drunk so much coffee. She can't stop shaking as she makes her way back downstairs and back into Drew's dark little bedroom, where she slumps on the edge of the bed. Her head is still pounding, and she drops it into her hands, massaging her sweaty temples. Her heart has decided to lodge itself in her throat, where it bricks up her chest, makes her head spin. She sucks in air through her nose, and it feels like choking.

"Whuh time izzit?"

The hoarse whisper makes her jump. She turns, and Drew's sitting up in bed, running a hand through his hair and blinking, confused, in the shadows. His suit jacket is in a tangled heap on the floor, his button-down on top of it, and his belt is thrown across on the other side of the room. He sits on top of the rumpled covers in his undershirt and dress pants, looking like he's not sure where he is or how he got there.

"Nothing." She takes a seat on the edge of the bed, smoothing the blue down comforter under her hands. "When did you wake up?"

He stares at her, mouth slightly open. She might as well be speaking Finnish.

Drew scratches behind his ears, looking around blearily. Light screams from behind the blinds, held back but still like knives on the bedroom floor. He looks smaller, drained of color, except for the shadows under his eyes. His hands tremor, gripping the bedsheets like they're some kind of weapon. She closes one hand over his clenched fist, and with the other she tilts his chin to make his face meet hers.

"Do you want anything?" she whispers.

He stares at her for a long moment. His eyes are hazy, like trying to see through heavy smoke.

Then, he says, "can we go to the bonfire?"

For a moment, she stares at him. Wonders if he actually _has_ lost it.

"The field," he adds, at her look. "Can we go back? I wanna see it again."

Bianca hesitates. After last night, she's thinking it's one of the last places Drew needs to be. But what's the alternative?

"Okay," she finally replies. "But you have to eat something first."

**II.**

Forty-five minutes and half of one leftover egg salad sandwich later, Bianca is driving them to the empty field where they had last night's memorial service. At first it surprises her that there are tons of other cars parked in the gravel lot, but then she remembers that it's a public park, and anyway, it's Sunday – people are jogging on the pathways, riding their bikes and rollerblading, little kids are playing on the playground and there are kiddie sports leagues full-swing into their weekend tournaments. People are actually living their lives.

It seems impossible.

Bianca gets out of the car, but Drew stays in the driver's seat, staring out the window.

"You coming?" she calls.

He blinks, like he's coming back from somewhere far, and follows her through the gravel. She reaches over and takes his hand, and after a moment he takes it back. They walk through the fields of joggers and families with little kids and Little Leaguers. They follow the dirt trail that cuts through branches of honeysuckle and patches of onion grass, past dogwood trees and cherry blossom branches, dandelions and three-leaf-clovers because nobody's ever that lucky. Drew is silent the entire time, and as they get closer they smell pine and salt and something wet and heavy, the damp silence of the roots and the underside of leaves as the sun glimmers through the branches overhead.

When they reach the edge of the woods, Drew stops. He's frozen, eyes wide, completely still, and staring straight ahead.

"What is it?" she asks.

When he doesn't answer, she asks again.

"Drew. What is it?"

He still doesn't say anything, just stares at what's ahead of him. Bianca follows his gaze, and her throat constricts – they're here.

The field looks so much smaller without the traces of last night. Gone are the streamers, the banners, the lights and the chairs. The dew from the morning has washed away everyone's footsteps, making their imprints in the soft ground invisible. And, of course, the fire – although they can still see the pit, it's nothing more than blackened pile of logs and ashes, long since gone cold. Except for the coals, there's nothing left here. Nothing to suggest anyone was ever hear, or that anything ever happened.

She looks over at Drew, squeezes his hand.

"You want to go in?" she murmurs.

He turns to her, eyes wide. His lower lip is shaking.

She takes a step forward.

He follows.

They walk to the middle of the lot, where the streamers last night had spelled out G-O-O-D-B-Y-E-A-D-A-M. There's nothing left of it now, except for a small stripe of red crepe paper. Bianca picks it up, runs the dirty, trampled piece between her fingers. It curls around her pointer, and she crumbles it into a ball and tosses it back to the ground.

Ahead of her, Drew sits in the soft, worn grass, close to where the heat of the fire was last night. He picks a dandelion sitting at his feet, shreds the white seeds off the stem with his fingers. He stares as they drift in the breeze, then peels the stem with his thumbnail.

Bianca watches him sit in the bone-dry earth, still peeling apart the little white wishes with his fingers. She crosses her arms over her chest and looks around the bare field, wondering if it had ever been big enough to handle everything and everyone that had been here last night. Where had she hugged Becky Baker, let the girl cry on her shoulder? Where had she and Imogen sat by the light of the fire and stared at the flames until their eyes were red from the smoke, and they'd been forced to move away? Where had Connor set up the video projector last night to show Eli and Clare's memorial video? Where had she and Alli Bhandari, of all people, held hands and cried together by the glow of the projector light?

There's a rush of anger that sweeps through her, making her shut her eyes and take a deep breath.

A bird whistles from somewhere off in the canopy. Bianca peers in the treetops, but doesn't see anything. Drew doesn't budge from his spot on the ground, in front of that long-dead fire.

The air is buggy and breezeless, and Bianca runs a hand through her hair to push away the loose parts. The treeline offers little shade, but it's still cooler than direct sunlight, so she steps back until she's standing under the low-slung branches of a dogwood tree.

Drew doesn't seem to remember she's there, and it's too hot to stand here, even in the mosquito-and-poison-oak-ridden shade. She walks back towards the baseball diamonds, the closest bathrooms, and sure enough, there's a water fountain. The water's too warm and there's old gum sticking to the inside, but it's water, and she splashes some more on her face and in her hair after she's had her fill.

There's a clump of trash cans behind the water fountains as she walks back towards the vacant field, and it wouldn't catch her eye. Except it does, and she slows down and stares, because the flash of white sends what's left of her heart into the sun-hard dirt and dead weeds beneath her feet.

The lantern is stained with dirt and something greasy. It has a few holes poked in it, probably torn from branches it had hit on its way down. Someone had crumpled it up and tossed it in the trash, along with empty water bottles and bags of chips, paper plates stained with ketchup.

Bianca watches the flies and crows circling the rim of the trashcan. The birds scavenge the tops for loose French fries and bits of bread while the flies hover near the smell. Her eyes are fixed on the twisted, dirty lantern, sitting at the top of the heap. The longer she watches it, the more it blends in with the rest of the garbage; loses its shape, its importance, and just becomes something else that's broken.

The glossy wings of the birds spread and shift colors as they pick through the can for something they want. The wings seem enormous somehow, streaked with greens and blues and purples mixed in with the inky black. They unfold like bad dreams as they screech at each other, their stark-white eyes rolling and glittering menacingly. One in particular catches Bianca's eyes, and seems to stare right at her before cawing loudly and disappearing into the tree line.

She turns away, almost sick.

The bird's shrieking calls send chills down her bare arms and legs. She walks away, then it turns into a full sprint as she passes the basketball court, the benches, the little wooden playground. She runs, gasping and dripping sweat, until she reaches the edge of the trees and doubles over, hand on her stomach, trying to catch her breath.

Her legs are shaking, and she stays doubled over for a moment, trying not to fall. She finally pushes herself upright, brushing sweaty fringe out of her eyes. Her shirt is clinging to her from sweat, her legs streaked with dirt. She tries to catch her breath and can't, just keeps walking to the treeline where the bonfire was. Their broken, useless lantern; their grand tribute to Adam. Tossed out in the trash.

What did she expect? That it had reached him, somewhere, wherever he was? That he somehow knew they threw that party for him? That he was still out there? Like a sign, or something?

She breathes hard, hand pressed to her sides. It all fucking _sucks. _

Bianca wipes angry tears out of her eyes and tries not to throw up.

Drew is still in the same place she left him, sitting in the patch of dry earth and pulling dandelions apart between his fingers. She watches him break her heart more with every shred, as the little white wisps blow off in the breeze; it makes her want to crumble on her weak legs and weep into the yellow summer grass.

Instead, she walks over to him. His brows are knitted as he determinedly pulls the little weeds to shreds, and he doesn't stop until she places a hand on his.

"You want to head back?"

Drew looks at her as if he's forgotten anyone exists. He's got a single yellow flower in his hands; the stalk dangles, wilted and dying. He doesn't answer, so she holds out a hand. He takes it, and stands, and a shower of earth falls to the ground in his wake.

She looks around the abandoned field one more time. The old bonfire pit, the now-cold grey coals, the dents in their chairs made, the spaces where their feet wore away the earth. There are ruts in the dust from the projector, and the giant screen. Everything left of their bonfire – ashes and ashes, dust and dust.

Drew is looking around, too. His face is white, blank as a moon.

She takes his hand. His fingers don't lace with hers. She squeezes it tighter.

"Let's go," she whispers.

He doesn't look at her. His eyes are focused on the ground as they put one foot in front of the other. Step, by step, by step – away from the sun and through the dense treeline, under the twisted dogwood branches and the shadows of oak and pine. The tree roots wind and lock around their feet like a network of secrets as they shuffle to the parking lot, the ground muffling every footfall. Even their shadows are obscured.

Beneath their feet, the step over more dandelion heads and half-broke stems, tramping over the sprouting little blossoms until they were hardly more than a nub in the overgrowth. A million little wishes, a million silly pipe dreams and fairy tales.

**III.**

At the edge of the trail they are stopped suddenly, silently, magnificently, by a deer crossing their path. They both stop, right at the same time, and stare at it as the deer strolls right past them.

Bianca watches it walk, hand-in-hand with Drew, and feels a hot, dry excitement shoot through her. She could reach out and touch its flank, if she wanted, but just keeps her hand in his.

It comes out of the pitch-black of the tangled woods, silent as an open coffin, and crosses the path just a few feet in front of them. The skin is smooth and the color of coffee with too much cream, its tail a small white cuff. It doesn't look their way as it walks past them and into a clump of honeysuckle and ivy, then disappears like it was never there in the first place.

Bianca and Drew stand rooted in place long after the deer has vanished into the silence. It left no footsteps or snapped twigs behind to show it ever crossed their path.

They finally keep walking. The sweat is still slipping down her forehead, along the back of her neck, on her chest. Drew's hand is slick in hers. They walk towards her car with only their footsteps on the rotted branches and the gravel parking lot to mark them.

Bianca feels stupid for even thinking it, but it feels like they closer they get to the car they get, the more she wonders if the deer was real or not.

It makes her remember how she woke up yesterday morning, and was convinced the noise she heard down the hallway was Adam. How she peered into the den filled with lilacs, and thought the way the pre-dawn shadows hit the stairs looked like him, and she turned away and inched back to Drew's bedroom shaking, and lay awake beside him until the sun came up, and how even then her heart couldn't stop shaking her chest loose.

**IV.**

The drive home seems to take so much longer. People act like they're determined to drive under the speed limit, to constantly be riding their brakes and stop at every yellow light and wait at least ten minutes to decide whether or not they want to go when it turns green. It sets Bianca's teeth on edge. Her palms flirt with the horn, but every time she thinks of hitting it something in her deflates and she lets it go, willing to keep crawling back toward town.

Drew's hands are resting on his knees. He stares directly ahead of her, into the sun, and barely blinks. Occasionally she hears him sigh, but he doesn't reach over to switch on her radio, or grab her hand over the gear shift, or roll down the windows and stick his arm out like he always does. She doesn't think he's here with her, anyway. Not really.

She looks over at him when they're stopped at a red light. And thinks, how weird this is. In the space of a year she's gone from being afraid of the people in her life to the exact opposite – now, only their absence is left to hurt her. Then she thinks about Drew holding her hand at the funeral and the way she had to kneel in front of him yesterday morning to fix his tie for him, because he couldn't move his hands and fingers.

"Move!" someone behind her shouts, a red Jeep. It passes her on the left with a honk, while the driver glares at her from behind his shades.

Bianca rolls her window down.

"Fuck you!" she calls back, but the guy doesn't hear her, and he's already cut in front.

Bianca beats her palms against the hot metal of her car door. She's furious. It's been like this lately – she just keeps getting angrier, and can't have a way of leveling off before something else comes along. Nothing to keep the floodgates back. On the way back from Waterloo, she cut off four trucks and honked her horn indiscriminately, and almost climbed, Batmobile-style, over a Subaru that was going under the speed limit in the passing lane. In three days, she's gone from OJ-style car chase to Granny driver, and now she wants to rip her car door off and throws it at the guy in the Jeep who honked at her.

She's on autopilot the way home, pulling into the cul-da-sac where Drew's house is at the very end. She stops in the middle of the road, car pointed directly at his driveway, and puts the car in park, still running. She sits in the car, staring out the windshield.

The way the field looks. The cold coals, the ruts in the earth, the yellow grass. It hits her, right then – the crawling anger, the bubbling pit in her stomach that won't stop hurting, how it's been burning her inside since they left the bonfire field.

Everything has moved on. It's another day. There are no funerals, no deaths, no celebrations. No lanterns, memorials, no tribute videos and headstones and bonfires. It's just…another day.

The sun came up, it'll go down, and in between, people are living their lives. Making coffee and buying shoes and taking the trash out, and nothing has changed. The only differences is that Adam is gone, and it will always be this way. Forever.

Drew reaches over, puts a hand on her arm, and it scares her – she's forgotten anyone was in the car with her, sort of forgot she was even _in_ the car.

"Are we going inside?"

"Did you want me to stay?" she blurts out.

He frowns. "What?"

Her throat feels sealed shut. She swallows, finding it impossible, fuck fuck _fuck_ she hates _everything._

She bangs her hand against the wheel.

"Hey!" Drew reaches out, grabs her before she can do it again. Holds her fingers, closes them over his hand. For once, it's not shaking, and it's warm. These are the hands she remembers.

He holds onto her for a moment, their palms hovering above the gear shift, just watching each other.

"You still want me to stay?" she asks, finally.

He stares. "What do you mean? Like, til when?"

"Till…whenever," she says.

His eyes widen. "Like, till school starts?"

"No, Drew!" she pulls her hand away from his.

He's still staring at her, still not following. She could strangle him for his cluelessness, except she doesn't, she wants to kiss him, too, and she just looks away, feeling disgusted. The fireflies are out.

She closes her eyes. She's panting hard, slumped down on top if the wheel, head rested in her arms. Bianca knows she needs to get a grip, so she clamps her mouth shut, breathing through her nose, and tries not to shake anymore.

"Do you want me," she says slowly, her face almost pressed against the window glass, "to stay here. Like, in Toronto."

She looks over at him. "With you," she adds.

Drew frowns.

"What about…" he starts, then trails off. He looks out the windshield, at the sun going down and the light fading, the world turning a bruise-blue color that makes her feel suffocated.

He looks back at her. "You'd really?"

She opens her mouth to reply, then asks again, "Do you want me to stay?"

The sun is almost gone. She doesn't think a day could feel longer than yesterday until she lived today.

Drew's eyes are wide. She can't fake it anymore when his hand comes up, stroking her neck, ruffling the tangled ends of her hair, and presses his forehead to her own. A shudder escapes between them, and she can't tell which one of them is shaking anymore.

"I don't want you to leave," he replies. His voice cracks; it's wet and shaky.

She closes her eyes. Stray tears slip through them before she can stop.

"I'm here," she says, and then Drew starts sobbing, and she puts her hand on his jaw and can't cry until her face is in his collarbone, smelling the earth on his clothes and the sweat on the back of his neck and the salt from his cheeks, and he grips her hair so hard it tugs her scalp but she still doesn't move.

They sit there in the middle of the road and some people honk, some people slow down as they swerve around their car, some people almost get out and ask them what's wrong, why the two of them are huddled together like they just survived something, his hands clinging to the sweat-stained back of her tank top and why she's closing her eyes against his hot, damp skin and why his breathing can't slow down, why her hands are sliding to lay flat against his chest, measuring the shallows of every gasp. What they're both doing here, sitting in her still-running car while the sunlight peters out over the city, and swallows them both in shadow.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note: In case you forgot, "Max" is the name of the redheaded manager at Coastlight, who made his first appearance in "Walking On Broken Glass".**

**I.**

After tossing and turning for most of the night, Bianca finally gives up and gets out of bed just before dawn. She sighs, rubbing her hands over her face. It feels rubbery, like a mask.

She's pulling on one of Drew's sweatshirts, watching him out of the corner of her eye. He's fast asleep, curled around the empty space where her body used to be next to his. His face is tucked into his arms, and his chest falls and rises, slow and steady. He doesn't move, even when she tucks the comforter around him.

It's the first night since she came back that he hasn't woken up, either crying or screaming or both. She doesn't know if it has something to do with going to the field, or hearing her promise that she'll stay, or just being so exhausted after a week of sleepless nights, but whatever the reason, she's grateful he's finally resting. She skims a hand over his hair, resting it on his head for a moment to let the tips of her fingers stroke his cheek. She might kiss him, but settles for smoothing the loose fringe off his forehead.

Bianca grabs her own laptop this time, fully charged, instead of his. She's glad she decided not to change the background to a photo of her and Drew, instead of the generic blue Windows one. She thought a picture of the two of them would raise too many questions she didn't feel like explaining to people at school. Now she's just glad that she won't be hit by another train of memories.

On that note, maybe she ought to change Drew's laptop background, before the next time he decides to use it.

She marches through the bonus room, head down, staring at her bare feet instead of the shadows and the lilacs of the sunlit room. The kitchen is empty, and she takes her usual spot at the table. Opens her laptop, feels a sense of relief at the blue screen, then pauses, hand over the keyboard.

The spot directly across from her is Adam's seat.

She stares at it for a long moment. Sees the meals they spent together, laughing and ganging up on Drew at his own clueless expense. Last year's Christmas dinners, where they all dressed up and exchanged gifts and Audra and Omar even let her and the boys have some wine with their meal. The Thanksgiving where Bianca met Drew's uncle Tony and Aunt Kristina for the first time, and they gave the two of them a thousand dollar check as a late engagement gift. Her pre-graduation breakfast before she and Drew rode over to the ceremony, where Audra made her chocolate chip pancakes and extra bacon and took a million pictures of the two of them by the bougainvillea hanging over the porch.

She closes her eyes so she doesn't have to see the shadow eating the last of the French toast sticks and taking his coffee black; who keeps his fingernails too short and badly needs a haircut; who texts Becky good morning every day and gets yelled at by Audra for leaving his dirty shoes on the white carpet.

Closing her laptop, Bianca goes to the living room, curling into the red armchair that Drew usually claims for himself. She's still seeing Adam on the expensive couch, but she can't hear him laughing in here.

She does some hunting around on the TU website, trying to find anything she can about financial aid. It's a public school, which helps, but still – she's missed too many deadlines, too much paperwork. At least, for this semester.

So what? She applies for Spring? Takes a semester off, hopes Omar can give her the filing job she had last summer? Save up money so she doesn't have to rely on student loans and financial aid checks to get by? Where will she live, anyway?

It doesn't feel okay, just _asking_ Audra if she could move in. Even if she did buy all her own food and household stuff, her own soap and toilet paper and socks, it still doesn't seem right. Plus, they already have Dallas living with them; one more houseguest, even if it's Bianca, is probably too much, especially right now.

But what are her other options? Getting an apartment by herself? She doesn't have that kind of money, especially with school. Moving into a place with Drew? She can't take him away from his parents, not now. He needs them, too. Back in with Juliana?

She snorts. The entire point of applying anywhere _but_ TU last year was that she wouldn't have to deal with that life anymore – no more auntie, no more auntie's boyfriend-of-the-week, no more bills piling up and paychecks spent at the casino and hearing the neighbors partying at two AM on a school night through the paper-thin walls. And now, crawling back to live in her old closet-sized bedroom sans air heater and with its charming window view of the dumpster behind the parking lot sounds like a form of punishment.

She puts a hand on her forehead, massages her temples. Catches a glimpse of the ring on her finger, and feels a twist in her stomach.

Bianca opens another tab, the student financial services webpage for Wilfrid Laurier. There has to be _some_ way to salvage some money from this.

Whatever the solution, she'll figure it out.

**II.**

"And there's nothing I can do for this fall?"

"No." The voice is flat, way too bored and way too high-pitched. Bianca holds the phone away from her ear and scowls at it, like the squeaky voice on the other end can actually see her face. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but the deadline was back in June. The earliest you can apply for is spring 2014. The applications are due in November."

Bianca bites her lip, tries not to groan.

"Okay," she says. "Fine. Thanks."

She hangs up before the bored voice can respond. _For nothing,_ she adds silently.

She sits down on the front steps, staring at the blank screen of her phone. It's slippery in her damp palm, and smeared with the tacky sweat on her face.

So that's it. No university, at least for a few months.

_Okay._

Okay. So. New plan.

She runs her hands through her hair, stares at the ground. Her bare feet are dirty from the black concrete of the driveway, dark sweat caked between her toes. She puts her head in her hands, bends it between her knees.

No school doesn't mean she doesn't have other things to think about. Like Step 1: Get a job. Step 2: Get a place to live. Step 3: Get working on another application.

She presses her palms to her closed eyelids, watches the colors explode to life behind them. It's so hot that sweat is starting to trickle down her spine and pool in the small of her back.

_Job. Home. Application. _

She'll have to talk to Omar about getting her old filing position back. Or maybe Drew can work something out with Coastlight? Max pretty much lets Drew run the place; she doesn't think it would be too hard for Drew to persuade him to give her a job.

The sprinklers jolt to life in the yard, startling her. She almost drops her phone on the hard ground, then slips it into the waist band of her shorts as sprinkles of the water drop onto her skin. She watches them scatter across the yard, mesmerized by their darting pattern.

Hocking cell phones at a kiosk in the mall. Apart from the pennies it would pay her, it wasn't exactly on par with starting her university education.

She looks at the ring on her finger, angles it so that it catches the glint of the morning sun.

_Job. Home. Application._

The heat is making her head spin.

"Bianca?"

Her vision blurs slightly as she looks up. The blinding light casts a shadow over the figure standing in the front doorway.

Audra bends closer to her. "Is everything all right?"

"Fine," she says. She's still feeling a little dazed, but the images are starting to clear: Audra looks more like herself than she has in days. She's wearing jeans and a blouse that smells like lavender, has got her purse slung over her shoulder, and her face is freshly made-up. The bags under her eyes and the red-rimmed, tear-swollen look hasn't gone away, but it's still an improvement. Her hair even looks like it's been flat-ironed, and Bianca can smell hairspray.

"You should probably come inside," Audra tells her. "It's too hot out here."

"Yeah." Bianca tugs at her hair again, wipes the sweat off her brow with the back of her hand.

"What were you doing out here, anyway?" Audra asks.

"Nothing," she says. "Just…needed to call someone. Are you going somewhere?"

Obviously, but the change of subject is what she needs right now.

Audra shifts her bag on her shoulder.

"Grocery shopping," she says. "Turns out, there's no food in the house." She gives Bianca a grim smile. "And apparently people can't survive by just eating spicy mustard."

"What about all the stuff people left?"

A shadow crosses Audra's face that has nothing to do with the sun, and Bianca feels like kicking herself.

"Yeah." Audra fiddles with her carkeys a moment, shaking her head. "I think I've seen enough pasta and casseroles to last me. I threw them all out, anyway." She shrugs one shoulder. "Hated looking at them."

She stares at the ground, shifts in her pumps a moment. Then clears her throat. "Anyway. You, uh, wanna tag along with me?"

**III.**

They're at a stoplight half a block away from the store, and Audra's poking at her hair in the visor's flip-down mirror.

"Wow," she murmurs. "Does my hair really look like that?"

Bianca watches. Audra's hair looks normal, just redder. Recent highlights, by the look of it.

Audra laughs bitterly, shaking her head. "Wow. Red is just not my color, apparently."

"Your hair looks fine," Bianca says.

Apparently Audra doesn't hear her, because she flips the mirror back up.

"Wow," she says again. She stares at the red light, tapping her fingers restlessly against the wheel.

"Can't believe I went to my son's funeral with ugly red hair."

Bianca freezes. Audra looks unconcerned, her voice calm and steady when she says the words "son" and "funeral" in the same sentence. She just watches the traffic light like it's a mildly interesting TV show, and continues to tap her manicured fingers against the wheel.

"Did I put dish soap on the list?"

Bianca lets her mouth hang open a moment before responding.

"What?" Her mouth feels too dry to speak.

"Dish soap," Audra repeats. "I need it. Is it on the list?"

She stares at Audra, then digs into the pocket of her bag. Her hands are shaking as she unfolds the little yellow paper scrawled with the shopping list.

Dish soap is on the list twice. Once at the top, and the second time in the middle between "carrots" and "pizza rolls". Adam once told Bianca that if you were out of pizza rolls, you were out of food.

She shoves the paper back in the bag. Her vision swims, blurring the road ahead.

"Yep," she says, breathless. "It's on the list."

Audra turns the radio on. An oldies station starts playing a song Bianca half-recognizes. Audra bats her fingers against the steering wheel to the beat as the light turns green.

**IV.**

"Shampoo," Bianca hears Audra mumble, staring at the crumpled shopping list. It's a little more wrinkled than before, thanks to how badly Bianca's hands sweat all over it. "I cannot forget shampoo. And Dallas is out of those disgusting protein bars he eats all the time."

Bianca doesn't say anything, just walks beside Audra. The second she walks through the sliding doors, she's blasted with a frigid wave of air conditioning so cold her teeth chatter, and she runs her hands over her goosebumped arms. The chill inside makes her want the sticky heat of the morning almost immediately, but she follows Audra to the produce section.

The bright lights of this place hurt her eyes, like she's been staring at the sun for too long. There's muzak playing on the tinny loudspeaker, some song that already annoys her without being able to follow or place the tune. The sounds are too bright, the colors too loud. She feels like she must be barely moving, but somehow everything keeps spinning away from her. There's a line at the deli counter, little kids begging their parents for a treat from the bakery, the cabbage and heads of lettuce and eggplant getting sprayed by the automatic sprinklers over their display shelves. People comparison shop for bags of red grapes and the plumpest blackberries and Bianca hates them all and their simple morning with a viciousness that scalds her throat.

Audra seems unconcerned, but Bianca can see the expression of grim resolve set to her face, the flat line of her mouth, the way her hands grip the shopping cart so hard the knuckles are losing their color. There's almost a homicidal intensity to the way she picks up a cantaloupe to check for softness, the way she compares the ripeness in a bunch of bananas. Her eyes are hard tacks as she scans the shelves for the right brand of peanut butter. When they get to the paper products aisle, she throws a pack of toilet paper and a box of tissues into the cart like she's trying to launch a grenade.

When they get to the rows of potato chips, Audra reaches up to grab a bag, then freezes, her hand grasping at the air. Her eyes go wide, and she suddenly drops her hand.

"What?" Bianca asks.

When the woman doesn't respond, she asks again, "Audra, what's wrong?"

Audra doesn't answer, just pushes the cart ahead so fast that she almost rams into the back of another woman picking out a bag of Doritos. She's walking so fast that Bianca has to jog a few steps to catch up with her. Bianca sees her lips are white, her face frozen in shock.

She doesn't know what just happened, but doesn't want to risk asking. She just falls into step beside Audra and tries to keep up.

Audra grinds her teeth, and stomps into a check-out line, throwing things onto the conveyor belt. The cashier raises his eyebrows at her, but Bianca throws him a look that makes him look away.

Bianca reaches in and tries to help unload, but Audra picks everything up and just dumps it on the belt, so she tries instead to settle everything into some order – placing the milk carton back upright instead of on its side, taking the heavy squash off the carton of eggs, lining up the individual cartons of yogurt so they don't roll away. She keeps her eyes aggressively blank as the cashier rings everything up.

Everything is almost bagged up when the cashier totals everything out.

"$91.67," he intones. "You feel like donating to Children's Miracle Network today?"

Bianca waits for Audra to hand him the credit card. When there's a long pause, she looks over at her, and sees Audra frozen over the conveyor belt, hands gripping the edge.

"Ma'am?" the cashier calls, clearing his throat. "Umm, your total's $91.67. Cash or credit?"

She doesn't act like she heard anything, just keeps staring at the conveyor belt. Bianca watches her head drop, her shoulders shaking.

"Audra?" she says quietly.

Audra doesn't look up at her, just shakes her head. She hunches over, and when Bianca reaches out to touch her shoulder, the woman brushes her off and turns away, abandoning the groceries and leaving her purse sitting in the empty shopping cart.

The cashier looks at the two of them with wide eyes, as Audra nearly runs out of the store.

"Uhhh," he says, "do you, like, wanna cancel the order?"

"Hold on!" Bianca snaps, and takes off after Audra.

Audra is hunched over the steering wheel, the car door open. The keys are in the ignition, the engine running, but Audra just sits in the driver's seat, her head buried in her hands. She runs them through her hair, and Bianca sees her face streaked with tears, covered in mascara.

"Audra?"

Bianca leans up against the open door.

"Audra," she says softly. "Tell me what I can do."

She hates the wobble in her voice when she adds, "Please."

Audra's whole body shudders as she tries to take a breath, and she groans when she wipes her eyes with the back of one shaking hand.

"It's just…" she begins, then crosses her arms over her chest and looks down. Tears spill out of her eyes and clink to the pavement, dotting the dazzling white asphalt.

Her voice hitches, and what's left of her resolve crumbles to the concrete.

"You don't come to the grocery store," she whispers, "and think, _I can't buy that anymore_."

She remembers Audra, reaching for a bag of chips before suddenly turning away. Thinks of her staring at the items on the conveyor belt. Then Bianca needs to hold the door for support. Her head drops down, and she's staring at the scuffed pavement beneath her feet, the wind suddenly knocked out of her.

How many were loaded there that Audra would never need to buy again?

"And I don't know what to do with it!" Audra sobs. She tucks her head to her chin and gasps in a ragged breath. "I don't know how to stop buying it! I don't know I forgot!" She throws her shaking hands in the air. "How did I forget that?"

Bianca still hangs onto the door. Audra shakes her head, and looks at her through swollen eyes.

"How did I forget my baby?" she whispers.

**V.**

Bianca manages to walk away from the car with dry eyes. She makes it behind the store, where the loading dock for delivery trucks is deserted, and ducks behind a row of cardboard compactors. She double-checks no one else is around when she finally throws up on the cracked pavement.

As soon as she thinks there's nothing left in her stomach, she pukes again, then dry-heaves a few more times before spitting out the last few acidic drops left. It leaves her stomach like knives, scraping her throat and burning her tongue as it all comes back up. She's amazed so much comes out, given how little she's eaten the past few days.

When she's finally finished, she braces herself against the cardboard compactor, trying to balance on wobbling legs. The compactor's hot metal burns the skin on her palm, and she holds it as long as she can stand before taking it away.

She stares at the vomit, congealing on the hot concrete. Wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.

The cashier still has all of Audra's things lined onto the conveyor belt, her purse sitting next to the register.

"I didn't know what to do," he explains, when she takes it back. "So I just thought…yeah, I dunno. Like, if she came back I'd give it to her, but if not, check for an ID and like, maybe my manager would…"

"What's the total?" Bianca cuts in.

The guy stares at her blankly. "Uhhh…$91.67. Is your Mom okay?"

Bianca doesn't answer, just grabs Audra's credit card and hands it to the cashier. She doesn't look at the bags piled up at the end of the register, or wonder how much stuff in there are things that Audra will unpack and realize there's no one left to use it anymore.

She closes her eyes and shoves the credit card under the cashier's nose.

"I can't let you do that," he says.

Bianca scowls. "Why not?"

"Cause you're not the name on the credit card. I need the person to sign for it."

"Well, she can't," Bianca snaps. "So I have to."

"Sorry, but my manager won't let me do that. We got, like, identity theft rules for that."

Bianca blinks at him. Takes a deep breath, grips the counter.

"Okay," she says. "Listen, ProActive. Take the damn card, and let me get out of here. _Capische?"_

The kid blinks, then takes the plastic, scowling at her.

"I'm not supposed to do this," he mutters resentfully, tearing off her receipt. "You saved six dollars and eighty-two cents today," he then adds automatically, as he hands it to her.

"Great," Bianca mumbles, shoving it in her pocket. She grabs the bags and stuffs them in the empty cart, almost runs into the back of some fat old lady trying to hurry out the store.

It's starting to rain when she heads back to the car, storm clouds rolling over the parking lot and the sun ducking behind the heavy skies, bleaching the parking lot with a steamy, airless heat. It's sprinkling into her hands, dotting her shoulders like freckles as she pops the Suburban's trunk open and starts loading the bags in the back.

The car door opens and shuts, and Audra appears, packing the bench in the back seat.

"You don't have to do that," Bianca says, but Audra grits her teeth and ignores her. Bianca watches her take a huge twelve-pack of paper towels and a jug of milk, then quietly loads the rest of the plastic sacks into the trunk of the van.

Audra is sitting in the driver's seat, ignition still on, when Bianca climbs in. There's a rumble of thunder not too far away; the clouds ahead of them go from grey to steel to heart-of-winter blue.

"Want me to drive?" Bianca asks.

Audra doesn't reply. Just points the car straight towards the sky, twisted with gunmetal and flame.

**VI.**

It's a full-on downpour by the time they get bag back to the Torres house. Bianca traces one large raindrop with her fingertip, watches its kamikaze fall down the kitchen window glass as it disappears.

She and Audra bring in the groceries, put them away in silence. Bianca watches out of the corner of her eyes as Audra focuses too intently on a box of Ziploc sandwich bags, opens the fridge and stares at the unlined shelves before she starts putting in the milk and cheese.

Bianca slips downstairs when everything else is put away, except for the box of instant oatmeal Audra is turning over in her hands. She's staring at the back of it, sitting at the kitchen table in grey silence, punctured only by the cough of the rain outside as Bianca turns and flees.

Drew and Dallas are sitting in the den, playing video games. The lilacs are still resting on the table behind the couch. Bianca stares at them, the wilting stems, the petals that are starting to fall off and gather on the table.

She looks away.

"Who's winning?" she manages.

Dallas ignores her. The table in front of them is littered with beer cans. Drew looks up at her, a lazy wide grin spreading on his face, like his smile is being tugged by strings. Right away, she can tell he's had more than too much; judging by the look in his eyes, he passed "buzzed" a few beers ago. He's always been a lightweight, but she can feel his skin buzzing even without touching him.

"Hey baby." He sounds hoarse.

She loops an arm around his neck. Brushes his cheek; it feels too hot, and his head sways and bobbles on his neck unsteadily.

"Where's your dad?" she asks.

Drew shrugs. "I dunno."

"Hey!" Dallas shrieks. "Come on, man, you didn't just Blue Shell me!"

Drew smirks, but the expression wobbles on his lips like it's seasick. "Think I jusss did," he says.

"You little shit," Dallas says. "You don't Blue Shell your friends, motherfucker."

"You do in Super Mario-Kart," Drew says, his grin too wide. His voice slurs cheerfully on each syllable.

Bianca looks past the beer cans and sees a bottle of whiskey sitting underneath the coffee table. She takes it and swirls what's left – not much.

She sniffs the remainder in the bottle, and wrinkles her nose. She always hated whiskey. She'd never been picky about her type of drunk back when, but the kind whiskey gave her was always particularly nasty.

Drew's Yoshi just slipped on a banana peel, and Dallas's Donkey Kong cart is swerving all over the course. He misses the clearing on a bridge jump and falls off the track, screaming "shit!" and nearly throwing the controller into the TV screen.

"Dude," Drew shouts. "Hey, easy, man. My mom's upstairs. She can't come down here."

Bianca shakes what's left in the bottle at the two of them. "Pretty sure Audra can smell you from here."

Drew makes a face at her, one that dissolves into hissing giggles.

"D'you have fun with my mom?" he asks.

Bianca thinks of the potato chips and shudders. "Have you puked yet?"

Drew shakes his head, smiling like a proud toddler. "Nope!"

"Hey man," Dallas says, pointing at the screen, "you know you're fuckin' in the lake?"

She turns to the screen. The Player 2 half fades to black, with Drew's Yoshi car upside down in the lake. It reappears at the starting line, then takes off jaggedly down the track before going off into the grass and crashing into a tree.

Bianca stares.

Drew seems unconcerned. He moves away from the tree, and keeps crashing the car into the barrier along the side of the track. The little car keeps driving into it, over and over again, always bouncing back.

"Do you wanna get something to eat?" she asks him. She can't look away from that car.

Drew shakes his head. "Not hungry."

"You should eat something," she says. "Help the hangover. Else it'll be a bitch."

Drew ignores her, just keeps running that car into the barrier. Dallas's own car has been going in reverse, the screen flashing WRONG WAY. He plows on, staggering across the finish line going the opposite direction.

Bianca sighs.

"I'm going to take a nap," she says. She reaches out and touches his arm; his touch is so hot, almost feverish. "Do you want to come to bed?"

"Not tired," he mutters, but his eyes are drooping.

She waits a moment, running her hand on his too-warm skin, but he doesn't take his eyes off the screen. Finally she gives up, and takes the whiskey with her into the bedroom. She slides it behind the dresser, but not before taking a swig herself. Can't help, but hey, probably can't hurt either.

It burns all the way down, and she doubles over, coughing like an amateur. Wow. She really is out of practice. At least it washes out the taste of puke still in her mouth, though.

There's hardly anything left in the bottle, and she doesn't want more, except she wants to shoot it back like water. She flops back onto the unmade bed instead, and covers her face with her hands.

She can still hear Dallas whooping in the next room, so she buries her face in the pillow. It smells like sweat and Drew's shaving cream, and breathing in the scent makes her feel a little calmer, less blindingly angry or so sad and hollow it eats her inside. It's the same scent she remembers from his bedroom at Fiona's, where she spent her nights becoming very familiar with the warm wine-red of his comforter and the chill of her bare feet on his wooden bedroom floor on winter mornings; crawling back in with Drew and pressing her frozen toes to his legs, listening to him yelp in protest and then tug her under the covers, trying to kiss her warm, and –

And those were so much easier, those mornings. When she'd have to hurry to get dressed and shower before rushing out the door, and Drew would beg her for a cup of coffee but get no more than a kiss, and she'd study on the patio overlooking the city and he'd bring her a lemonade from the food court deli when he got home from work, and he'd sometimes be persuaded to quiz her on her Bright Sparks notes but he'd give up halfway through and beg for something more sexy, and she'd eventually realize that asking him to help her study wasn't going to get her anywhere.

How could she have taken all of that for granted? Did she just ignore how lucky she'd been back then? Living in some fantasy world, where nothing bad ever happened and she was in love and brothers didn't die and rip holes in the world and people didn't get ruined and she didn't wake up at four AM to Drew screaming in his sleep and where she didn't sometimes have to hide in the bathroom with the faucet running to cry his name under the sound of the rushing water?

She'd been so _fucking stupid._ They'd all been. Living in some perfect little bubble, where they were all safe. Where they never thought any _more_ bad stuff could happen. Like they'd already seen enough bad, and it somehow granted them all the good. Like anything in life _actually_ worked that way.

Fuck everything.

She throws the pillow against the wall. It bangs against Drew's blinds before flopping on the ground. She glares at the space on the wall where her shot had landed, wondering why it hadn't blown a fucking crater through the wall.

She buries her face in the remaining pillow, pulls the covers far over her head. It's too hot in this little room and she can't breathe in this position, but it doesn't matter, because she just howls into the folds of the fabric; the feathery down, the seams of the stitching, the springs of the mattress. Kicks her legs, clenches her arms, screams louder; a long, endless, tearless, never-ending cry.

**VII.**

The light screams at her. Her eyes fly open. Drew staggers in, holding onto the dresser.

"Turn the light off," she mumbles, turning back into the pillow.

Drew tries to reach for the light, misses it completely. He stares at the wall, then reaches again, and misses the light once again.

"Sorry," he mutters.

She sits up. "Did you puke yet?"

He braces himself against the wall. "Probably."

She rolls her eyes. "Do me a favor, and go sit in the bathroom till you do. I don't feel like getting barfed on."

He stumbles to the side of the bed, slumping down onto the mattress. He puts a hand on his forehead, squinting his eyes in the light.

"Turn the light off," he whispers.

She sighs. Gets out of bed, switches the light off, and sprawls back onto the covers.

Drew groans into his hands.

"You're still here?' he slurs.

She props herself up on one hand. "What?"

He blinks. His eyes are blood-red. She wonders if it's just from the alcohol, then thinks, probably not.

"Are you here?"

She stares down at him for a moment.

"I'm here," she says. "I'm– " She shakes her head, lies down beside him. "Oh my god, why am I even trying. You're so messed up."

Drew groans again, and rolls over on his side. She holds her breath, anticipating puke, but instead he turns back over, tucking his face into her shoulder.

"You're –" he murmurs, then trails off. His eyes slip shut, eyelashes batting against grey-tinged skin, black-rimmed eyes.

"You're still here…" he says, barely a whisper.

The hollow space inside her aches. Like there's more than just bitterness there. She takes a hand, touches his cheek.

"Yeah," she says. "I'm still here."

Drew lets out a slow, whiskey-soaked breath that makes her wrinkle her nose. He presses his face to her side, nuzzles her collarbone. His skin is still so hot on her own.

She keeps her cool hand on his face, watches him slip away from her breath by breath. She puts her lips to his ear.

"Sleep, okay?" she whispers.

He doesn't move. She sits up beside him, staring down. He doesn't stir, even after she takes her cool hand away.

She watches his chest. The rise and fall, and tense line of his shoulders.

"Sleep," she says again.

**VIII.**

The back rows of the parking lot are empty, the street lights dim. She pulls into a dark corner and turns Audra's Suburban off, watching the lonely lights of the highway rushing past fall on her windshield. She smells the steam and asphalt in the air as she cries in silence, watching the racing glow of disappearing headlights.

She took the keys off Audra's hook in the mudroom, saying that she was going to get gas. Which was, technically, true – the SUV was low on fuel, she noticed that when they were driving home from the grocery store. But after she'd filled up the tank she found herself turning right instead of left, going towards town instead of out, and ended up driving four blocks out of the way before stopping in the parking lot of a strip mall by the side of the highway.

The tears had come later, after she's been sitting in the dark with the radio turned down and the headlights off. Because she's feeling especially like crap, she takes out her phone and starts flipping through the pictures, hovering her finger over the ones of her and Drew, her and Adam. Her, Adam, and Drew, or just the brothers together.

She hasn't really let herself cry since before the funeral, since after that call from Dallas. The most she's allowed herself are the little moments when she tucks into the bathroom to sit on the closed toilet, turning the bathwater on and giving herself a few moments. Or when she disappears into the laundry room and lets herself duck her head, hiding her tears with the rumble of the dryer. This is the first time she's allowed herself time out of the house alone since coming back, and it feels weak and shitty and makes her sick but she has to pull into the dark and let herself cry.

Bianca remembers thinking, right after Dallas called, that there would never be enough tears left. That she could never cry herself dry. But, as it turns out, it doesn't take long before she doesn't have any left. And as much as she _hates_ crying, she hates more feeling like she's already out of them. She thinks there shouldn't be enough to cry for Adam, but apparently she was wrong. Soon, her eyes are dry.

She leans back, reclining the seat back so she's looking up at the ceiling. She closes her eyes, and the mantra runs through her head again:

_Job. Home. Application. _

She opens them again, stares up into nothing. When she closes her eyes, all she sees is Adam, and when she opens them all she sees is Drew. And Adam. So instead, she repeats those three words in her head, and tries to make a list of everything she needs to do:

Look into her old filing job. Talk to Max, if it comes to that. Figure out what to do about finding a place to sleep at night, and then focus on applying for TU Spring 2014.

It's a dull, repetitive list, and it doesn't do much to keep her from dwelling. But that's all she can think of to block out the other noise, and it's what she needs. What she has to do.

The rain keeps coming down. Bianca sits up, wipes her nose with the receipt she got from the gas station. The dark house is waiting for her, along with the dark bedroom, and the empty space in the bed she's come to know as her own.

**XIV.**

On the way inside, she stops to empty the mailbox. It's stuffed full – she forgot to get it yesterday, looks like. Or is all of this just from today? Bianca can't remember. There are two newspapers thrown close to the dying lantana bushes at the foot of the driveway. She grabs them both, thinks about tossing them but figures Omar might want to flip through them.

Which reminds her – she needs to take the trash cans down the curb, because it's Tuesday…she thinks.

Bianca takes a moment, flips through the giant stack. Catalogs from electronics stores, a flyer for a department store sale this weekend, tons of Back-to-School ads. She stares at those – school really is starting soon, she realizes. This Twilight Zone won't last forever. Drew will have to go to Degrassi, some day.

There's some bills, looks like, and then the letters. Sympathy cards. Hallmark shit. Envelopes with addresses she doesn't recognize, from all over Canada. Family, she guesses, or maybe just friends. She doesn't recognize any of the names.

She looks at the envelopes, the spidery loops of handwriting from people she's never met. It's none of her business, she knows, but she slips the cards into her bag.

The anger she felt in the field yesterday comes rushing back. She looks at one letter, in an envelope the same color as the wilting lilacs in the downstairs den, and suddenly remembers going to the funeral home with Drew and his parents.

It was insane to her, just how expensive funerals were. Not just funerals themselves, but the coffin you actually buried the body in. She knew the Torreses weren't exactly hard-up for cash, but fuck – here were some idiots in suits, talking to Audra and Omar about the hardwood box they were burying their baby in. And Drew, shaking beside her, gripped her hand the entire time with a bone-crunching grip she didn't try to squeeze out of. He didn't say a word, until the undertaker asked his parents how many death certificates they wanted.

Drew's head had snapped up.

"We don't need a death certificate," he said hoarsely. His jaw was clenched like steel, his eyes burning. "We know he's dead."

Omar's eyes closed. Audra reeled as if she'd been shot.

"Drew," she said, when she finally could.

Drew ignored her.

"You'll need a few copies for yourself," the undertaker said, looking at Omar. "Simply for legal reasons, Mr. Torres. I know it all seems too impossible to consider, but unfortunately, it's a bit of a necessary evil."

_Necessary evil._ Bianca had tried not to sock the guy in the face.

Dumb motherfucker. Selling Audra and Omar an overpriced box to stick their son's body in. Making money off of their nightmare. Then trying to sell them a million reminders, as if the holes inside them all weren't fucking enough.

Audra ended up fleeing to the restroom. Omar stood staring at the rows and rows of coffins, staring at ones with the Canadian maple leaf on them, the Virgin Mary, Jesus and the Twelve apostles. Bianca stared at one with a depiction of The Last Supper painted on the inside of the casket, and wondered who the hell would every bury someone they loved in that thing. Drew stood in the middle of the overheated, potpourri-soaked room in the same suit he would wear to bury Adam, swaying on the puke-colored carpet.

Bianca had ended up settling the deal with the death certificates with the undertaker.

"Five copies," she'd said. She figured that would be enough; she didn't have any concept of the "legal reasons" the undertaker had mentioned, but she figured, whatever they were, five would be enough. If any, they'd have extra.

She'd caught herself after that last thought. Extra copies of the official word your son was dead. Extra copies of the reason Audra could barely get out of bed, Omar's face looked twenty years older overnight, Drew cried himself to sleep and cried himself awake and walked around like a zombie every moment in between. Extra copies of the reason Dallas stayed drunk, and she locked herself in the bathroom, and sobbed into her hands under the spitting showerhead.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Bianca takes the letters out of her bag, and after giving herself a second to think it over, rips them all in half. Then into fourths. Then keeps ripping, until the bits are so small she can barely make out individual alphabet letters. She shoves the whole confetti mess in her purse, sweating and out of breath.

Let them keep their grocery store Hallmark bullshit. They didn't pick out a casket, order death certificates. Help write a fucking obituary for one of the people they loved most in the world.

She parks the car in the garage, and forgets to turn it off. She's almost unlocking the garage door when she realizes she better turn the damn thing off, before they all die of carbon monoxide poisoning.

She stops downstairs to check on Drew. He's still in bed, his brows furrowed and mouth turned down. She touches his hot forehead, and wonders if it's worth getting him up, getting him out of his sweaty clothes. Instead, she turns the ceiling fan on, cracks the window. It's still storming, but not as hard as before, and there's a chilly breeze twisting in the cold rain, so she leaves the window open and tugs the sheets down so he can feel the cooler air.

Audra is sitting in the living room, staring at a mute TV screen. An episode of one of those extreme couponing shows. The woman onscreen is buying sixty bottles of detergent. Bianca stands behind the couch, and wonders what you could possibly need THAT much detergent for.

"You all right?" Audra asks.

Bianca checked her eyes in the mirror before coming in; it didn't look obvious that she'd been crying, but she'd re-applied make-up, just to be sure.

"What?" she asks.

Audra doesn't look up from the silent screen.

"I didn't know you left," Audra says.

Bianca stands in the TV light and feels ashamed. Here Audra buried her son not three days ago, and now she's got other people disappearing on her, too.

"Sorry," she murmurs. "I was putting gas in your car."

Audra sighs. "That explains where my keys went."

There's a glass of wine sitting on the table by the couch. Not much left in it. Audra picks it up, swirls what remains in the glass.

"You didn't have to do that," she whispers.

"It's ok," Bianca replies, without looking at her.

Audra doesn't reply, just stares at the near-empty wine glass. The glow of the TV screen makes her skin look sickly grey, her eyes sunken and hollow.

"Sorry," Bianca says again. She's not sure what she's saying sorry for, exactly, but feels like it's owed Audra, somehow. Isn't that what happens, when the word _dead_ has and always will follow the words, _your son is_?

"Don't be sorry," Audra says. "Just…wondering where you'd gone."

She keeps swishing the wine in that glass. Bianca watches the coupon lady move on to buying three hundred individual handsoaps, filling an entire shopping cart with the squat pump bottles.

There's a knock on the door.

Audra clears her throat. "Dinner's here."

There are open pizza boxes scattered all over the kitchen table. Omar is peeking in each of them; she doesn't see Dallas anywhere, wonders if he's passed out in his own bedroom.

"Got green olive and mushroom," Audra murmurs to her, as she tears off a paper towel and hands Bianca a paper plate.

"Thanks," Bianca says. She takes a slice of her own, and after a moment of hesitating sits at the seat at the kitchen table usually occupied by Drew. It's the seat that was always next to Adam, but she turns her body away from the empty chair.

Audra comes up beside her. She doesn't take a piece of pizza, just tears off a paper towel and starts folding it into little pleats.

"You're not eating?" Omar asks.

Audra shakes her head. "I'm really tired."

She turns, walks down the hall, disappears into the dim bedroom. Omar watches her walk away, hands on his hips. He stares at the gleaming kitchen floor.

"Is there any pepperoni?" he asks, finally. His voice is too high-pitched.

Bianca opens a box near him. "Here," she says quietly.

He clears his throat. "Thanks." He grabs a slice, but not before pausing, his hand over the pizza box, and closing his eyes for a beat, like he's bracing for some sort of impact.

"Thanks," he repeats, and Bianca has to look away.

**XV.**

She checks on Drew again. He's cooled down a bit, so she closes the window, but he groans when she tries to wake him up, so she just leaves him there. Everyone else appears to have gone to bed, so she ends up sitting in the lilac room, smelling the whiskey and leftover flowers as she flips through the channels.

She looks through their DVR catalog, sees episode of shows she knows Drew doesn't watch. They're probably Adam's, and they go back for months; Bianca wonders why those later episodes haven't been deleted yet, to free some room up in the catalog, but remembers the photos on her cell, the photo on computer background, and her hand shakes. She clicks the TV off, throwing the remote across the room.

She hunts around on the internet more, flipping back between TU and Wilfrid Laurier tabs. Tries in vain to look for a loophole in the application rules, studies the financial aid info. Doesn't see anything she doesn't already know, and the emails she sent to the head of financial services at both universities have gone unanswered.

She slips into bed and lies on her back, staring at the whirring blades of the fan. Drew's quiet breathing beside her makes her eyes drift shut, and she turns over, tucking herself on the shelf of his collarbone.

He inches closer to her, until they're almost forehead to forehead. Mumbles something to her she can't hear, the syllables sliding away from him before they reach her.

She figures he's too drunk to make sense, so she just pulls the covers over them both. But then he presses his lips to her ear.

"You're still here," he whispers.

Bianca closes her eyes. Wraps her arms around him. The rain outside pelts the windows with silver needles and the lightning dazzles the world blue and gold while the blades of the ceiling fan cut shadows over them both.

"Yeah," she murmurs back. "I'm still here."


End file.
